


solace

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hammertime - Freeform, PTSD, Pepsicola, Post-Sburb, There are mentions of blood, i hope you like these kids, i think, just two boys comforting each other, not really that shippy just kind of soft and nice, style practice or something, trying to recover from the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 18:08:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7116958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he found solace in the tangle of bony limbs, messy hair and crumpled shirts. he would open his eyes and find his glasses, and dave,  dave would be all sparse freckles dotted across sun-kissed cheeks and hair pale and thin like the moonlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	solace

**Author's Note:**

> some quickly written post-sburb dave/john comfort stuff  
> enjoy.

they don’t really take any notice of it; they’re already so comfortable with each other by that point that neither of them say anything.

dave was used to it, the feeling of his arms tightening around his waist as he mumbled a quiet ‘stay here’ and how he didn’t have to roll over to know that john, john was here and everything was fine.

after sburb, everything was hard, the open space and the people and everything was closing in around them and it hurt. it hurt knowing that they had spent seven years being heroes and now that had been half their life gone, years turned to dust and ash as their universe built itself around them and it had been so long since they had been anywhere but in the game, and everything was unfamiliar to them.

they had each other, though, and that’s what kept him going: because john, he was the gentle wind brushing past his cheek when he stepped outside and the drops of rain sliding down his umbrella. he was the softness of fingers curling around each other, shared warmth under fresh blankets. he was more of a home than his old apartment, or anywhere else could be, and that’s why it was completely normal.

nothing really changed when they began exchanging light kisses; on the forehead, on the cheek, soft touches of pale lips. it was just one of those things that they accepted, the same way they all just moved into a single house together because they were the lonely gods, in a life long lost and a dream long destroyed.

they were there for each other in the nights, the nights that were too long and too short, when they would stay awake for hours and when they finally fell asleep, the sun would already be making itself visible over the tops of shadowed trees. the nightmares were frequent, blood staining their vision and leaking through their minds, endless scenes of death and grief played out in their minds, relentlessly, ruthlessly, as if the game was telling them that this, this was the only thing they were allowed to keep from the game, not their powers or their weapons or their friends, but the horrors and the screaming and the pain.

he would get them every night, dreams of grating metal, gears ticking and turning and never stopping, just looping and dragging on, and it was hot, the lava was everywhere that the clockwork was not, it was bright and blinding and it burned, both in a physical way and in a scarring way, a painful way because he didn’t want to feel that heat or hear its hissing accompanied by the screeching of metal ever again.

john would get them too, but not of burning and metal; he would feel the blood seeping into his clothes and running into the cracks of his quest bed, he would know the shock of being killed and having godhood being forced into him, walking down mushroom-lit paths and knowing everything was relying on him. he realised, later, that he’d brushed everything off with a careless hand, that he’d smiled his patient smile and kept doing _something_ because if he didn’t, the reality would come cascading down upon him and things wouldn’t seem so great anymore, his heroic adventure would just be a struggle, a horrible blurred line between a game and a sadistic, cruel universe that skewed their lives and their perceptions.

and they would be shaken awake by each other if they started crying or shaking or became restless in their sleep, and neither of them would say anything because it was just a silent understanding.

sometimes they would talk about the trolls; dave had had more experiences with them, living with terezi and karkat for three years, and he remembered the friendship, screwed-up drawings in red chalk exchanged, licks to the cheek, toothy grins. he remembered the comfort, the realisation that maybe his childhood hadn’t been all that great, the romcom movie dates and lengthy explanations of troll romance quadrants. he and karkat had had it good; he still missed him sometimes, but he figured they had alternia to look after and the humans had earth.

there were the good days, where the nightmares might stop for a little and everything felt like it was fine; there would just be the light pooling on the wooden floorboards, streaming through the windows in little beams and the warmth and safety of each other’s arms. and then there were the bad days, the ones where he would wake up and stand and fall, because his body remembered it more than his mind and it didn’t want to go back there ever again.

they just hugged a lot, cuddles and whispered words, support found in three other kids just like himself, in order and routine and a sense of renewal. glasses would be abandoned more often than not, put to the side so they wouldn’t leave indents or marks later.

they both try too many different ways to help each other out.

john worries a lot; he frets and bites his lip, and will leave a little purple bruise spot where he bit down too hard. he worries for dave, that his smiles, the smiles which are only ever as languid and easy around john, will stop and become stiff again, because he remembers that too often.

dave can’t keep his hands still; he fiddles with elastic bands and taps beats with his fingers, spins a pen in one hand and traces out weaved patterns in tabletops. he sometimes shakes, not nervously but in the restless way; he gets his knee to vibrate and soon the table shakes. 

he becomes more interested in watching people; through his sunglasses, no-one can see his eyes as they flit from person to person, scrutinising and etching out stories in his head. he observes everything with a strangely advanced level of aptitude, noticing all of the subtle changes in movements of his friends around him. to him, his restlessness and quirks are just new ways to flood out his mind, to forget and push forward.

they are closer than they ever imagined they would be, both physically and mentally. it becomes a regular thing, just a habit, when they subconsciously sidle close to each other when sitting next to each other, when they wraps arms around each other or hook each other’s arms.

they clasp each other’s hands naturally now, dave’s large, calloused, slender hands wrapping around john’s smaller ones, a tight squeeze and thumbs rubbing circles into the sides of knuckles.

john would wake up sometimes with dave’s chest pressed against his face, his friend being at least a half head taller than him. he found solace in the tangle of bony limbs, messy hair and crumpled shirts. he would open his eyes and find his glasses, and dave, dave would be all sparse freckles dotted across sun-kissed cheeks and hair pale and thin like the moonlight. he would grin down at him in the strange orange glow of the morning, and they would get up together, fixing breakfast and trying to find a sense of routine, a sense of _normalcy_ , comfort after years of being tossed around by a game that hated them.

they were each other’s homes, and that was enough.


End file.
